Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Department of Psychology, Princeton, United States.
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Elife. 2021 Feb 15;10:e63551. doi: 10.7554/eLife.63551.
In a traditional view, in social cognition, attention is equated with gaze and people track other people's attention by tracking their gaze. Here, we used fMRI to test whether the brain represents attention in a richer manner. People read stories describing an agent (either oneself or someone else) directing attention to an object in one of two ways: either internally directed (endogenous) or externally induced (exogenous). We used multivoxel pattern analysis to examine how brain areas within the theory-of-mind network encoded attention type and agent type. Brain activity patterns in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) showed significant decoding of information about endogenous versus exogenous attention. The left TPJ, left superior temporal sulcus (STS), precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) significantly decoded agent type (self versus other). These findings show that the brain constructs a rich model of one's own and others' attentional state, possibly aiding theory of mind.
在传统观点中,在社会认知中,注意力等同于目光,人们通过跟踪他人的目光来跟踪他人的注意力。在这里,我们使用 fMRI 来测试大脑是否以更丰富的方式来表示注意力。人们阅读描述一个主体(自己或他人)以两种方式之一将注意力引导到一个物体上的故事:内部引导(内源性)或外部诱导(外源性)。我们使用多体素模式分析来检查思维理论网络内的大脑区域如何对注意力类型和主体类型进行编码。左颞顶联合区 (TPJ) 的大脑活动模式显示出对内源性与外源性注意力的显著解码。左 TPJ、左颞上回 (STS)、顶内沟和内侧前额叶皮层 (MPFC) 显著解码了主体类型(自我与他人)。这些发现表明,大脑构建了一个关于自己和他人注意力状态的丰富模型,可能有助于思维理论。